Giger's use of opium

a)Giger offer's O'Bannon some opiumAt the hotel in Paris where they first met for the Dune film project, Giger came up to Dan holding some tin foil and said to him, "would you like some opium?"Dan asked "why do you take that?"Giger replied "I am afraid of my visions"Dan replied "It's only your mind"Giger replied "That is what I am afraid of"

b)Grof's revelation
Exactly what Giger had this for might seem rather curious but years later Stanislav Grof mentioned to Erik Davis on his expanding mind podcast that Giger was suffering from depression and so the Swiss Doctors was on big prescribed doses of opium, which Grof didn't think was a great therapeutic approach. At the time, it might easily be said that Giger has emotionally suffered from the death of his girlfriend Li Tobler, but when Giger started taking it isn't mentioned. A question to ask might be how opium might have affected his work as well

Dan O'Bannon:And
I wasn't the only there, he had gone to England and he had plucked up
a, and artist who did covers for science fiction books named Christopher
Foss, and for the first time I saw somebody whose stuff I liked as much
as Ron Cobb's stuff. He had another artist he wanted me to meet. He had another artist he wanted me to meet. He had
seen this guy's work in a, a show that was in Paris at the time. Took
me over to, to really one of the fancy hotels in Paris, not the one I
was staying at, where this artist named Hans Rudi Giger was staying
while his show was on display in Paris. Giger brings up this little tin
foil, he said "would you like some opium?", I said "why do you take
that?", he said "I am afraid of my visions", I said "It's only your
mind", he said "that is what I'm afraid of" He brings out a book, an art
book, with his paintings in it, I started looking at this, and he and
Alejandro go into a big discussion about Dune, I started looking at
these paintings and it took a minute for it to register what I was
seeing, but, ah, what I seemed to be seeing was very disturbing(6:31, The Beast Within : Starbeast: Developing the story)

Stanislav Grof: He
suffered from depression and the Swiss Doctors gave him opium so he was
on big prescribed doses of of opium which I didn't think was a great er,
therapeutic approach. (http://expandingmind.podbean.com)